RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. scored a pair of legal victories Friday in the battleground states of North Carolina and Michigan, and a setback in Wisconsin, in his quest to get his name off of the ballots in some states after he suspended his campaign and endorsed former President Donald Trump.

North Carolina’s intermediate-level Court of Appeals issued an order granting Kennedy’s request to halt the mailing of ballots that included his name, upending plans in the state just as officials were about to begin sending out the nation’s first absentee ballots for the Nov. 5 presidential election.

The court — a three-judge panel ruling unanimously — also told a trial judge to order the State Board of Elections to distribute ballots without Kennedy’s name on them. No legal explanation was given.

In Michigan, its intermediate-level Court of Appeals ruled that Kennedy should be removed from the ballot, reversing a decision made earlier this week by a lower court judge.

And in Wisconsin, a Dane County circuit court judge denied Kennedy’s request for a temporary restraining order to put on hold the state elections commission’s decision to keep him on the ballot.

“A matter of such consequence deserves a full development of the record with appropriate briefing by all sides,” Judge Stephen Ehlke wrote. He set a scheduling conference for Wednesday, a week before the deadline for the printing of ballots.

In separate statements, a Kennedy attorney praised the North Carolina and Michigan rulings, saying they uphold state elections laws and support ballot integrity by ensuring no one must vote for a candidate no longer running in their state.

A favorable outcome for Kennedy could assist Trump’s efforts to win North Carolina, Michigan and Wisconsin.

North Carolina law required the first absentee ballots to be mailed or transmitted to those already asking for them no later than 60 days before the general election, making Friday the deadline. The process of reprinting and assembling ballot packages likely would take more than two weeks, state attorneys have said.

The State Board of Elections formally asked the state Supreme Court late Friday to reverse the Court of Appeals decision. State lawyers asked the justices to act quickly before adjustments to the ballots ordered earlier Friday is complete — likely in a few days.

Kennedy, the nominee of the We The People party in North Carolina, had sued last week to get off the state’s ballots after he suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump. But the Democratic majority on the State Board of Elections rejected the request, saying it was too late in the process of printing ballots and coding tabulation machines. Kennedy then sued.

Wake County Superior Court Judge Rebecca Holt on Thursday denied Kennedy’s effort to keep his name off ballots, prompting his appeal. In the meantime, Holt had told election officials to hold back sending absentee ballots until noon Friday.

More than 132,500 people — military and overseas workers and in-state civilian residents — have requested North Carolina absentee ballots so far, the State Board of Elections said.

In an email, state board Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell told election directors in all 100 counties to preserve current ballots and coding in case rulings revert to keeping Kennedy on the ballot. More than 2.9 million absentee and in-person ballots with Kennedy’s name on them have been printed so far. Counties would have to pay for the cost of reprinting ballots.

With Friday’s deadline not met, North Carolina election officials still are faced with meeting a federal law requiring absentee ballots go to military and overseas voters by Sept. 21. They may try to seek a waiver if new ballots can’t be produced in time.

Friday’s ruling in North Carolina didn’t include the names of judges who considered Kennedy’s request — the court releases the names after 90 days. The court has 15 judges — 11 registered Republicans and four Democrats. Names usually have been withheld from such orders to discourage “judge shopping,” or purposefully seeking out a judge who’s likely to rule in your favor, the court has said.

Kennedy sued Democratic Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on Aug. 30 to get off the ballot. He filed suit in Wisconsin on Wednesday.

Friday’s ruling from Michigan said that while Kennedy’s request was made close to the deadline to give notice to local election officials, it wasn’t so unreasonable as to deny relief to him. Benson’s office will appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court, a spokesperson said.

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Associated Press writers Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan, and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.

“He’s a good speaker. He made some mistakes in his past,” said Allan Jones, a 59-year-old truck driver, at the campaign event near his home in Colfax, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) west of Raleigh. “Haven’t we all? Did we learn from them? Let’s go forward.”

Robinson, a favorite of former President Donald Trump, is the party’s nominee for governor in the November election. He is looking to succeed term-limited Democrat Roy Cooper in a state that has voted for Trump twice and has backed Republicans for the presidency all but once since 1980. Robinson is popular for his working-class history and a blunt speaking style that at times resembles Trump’s.

But Robinson also has a history of inflammatory comments that his opponent, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, has said makes him too extreme to lead North Carolina. It raises the prospect that campaign struggles for Robinson could hurt Trump’s chances to win a state he cannot afford to lose to Democrat Kamala Harris.

On a Facebook post in 2019, Robinson said abortion in America was about “killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.” In a 2021 speech in a church, he used the word “filth” when discussing gay and transgender people.

Democrats led by Cooper, a top surrogate for Harris, have tried to make the case that North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes are ripe to win. Trump’s 1.3 percentage point victory in North Carolina over Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 was the narrowest for Trump. Cooper argues that Republican candidates with views closely linked to Trump — Robinson and state schools superintendent candidate Michele Morrow among them — could turn out people who otherwise would not have voted for Democrats.

Stein, after a campaign event last month at Wilber’s Barbecue in Goldsboro, said he did not know whether such views by those candidates would affect the presidential race but he thought they could be on voters’ minds.

“These are not normal people or candidates, and I think it’s going to have a big impact on the way voters look at the Democratic Party in our state and the Republican Party in this light,” he said.

There are no public signs that Trump is distancing himself from Robinson, who appeared on the stage for Trump’s recent rallies in the state.

Stein had a lead over Robinson in two polls of North Carolina voters conducted in August. Robinson’s campaign released a memo this week from a pollster arguing that Robinson has been faring better than the two previous GOP nominees for governor.

“Reverse coattails or other Democratic fever dreams are not real, particularly in a presidential election cycle,” state Republican Party spokesperson Matt Mercer said. “What is real is the electoral strength of Donald J. Trump in North Carolina.”

Stein and his allies have been successful so far in defining Robinson in the closely divided state. Robinson’s views on abortion have been front and center, and Democrats have used a stockpile of footage from Robinson’s social media posts in their television commercials and videos.

Data from AdImpact, which monitors campaign spending, show that Stein has outspent Robinson by more than a 3-to-1 margin since the March primaries, an edge that would widen based on spots reserved between now and the fall general election.

“Mark Robinson is the chief spokesperson for the Josh Stein attack campaign,” said Paul Shumaker, a veteran GOP consultant whose clients included a candidate who lost to Robinson in the primary.

Robinson also has received bad press for his family’s businesses, including a nonprofit run by his wife that state regulators found had numerous problems in administering a child nutrition program.

Robinson says his past words have been twisted by others and he blames the “weaponization” of state government for the attack on his wife’s business. He remains optimistic entering the final two months of the race.

“Certainly when you look at a poll, you may get dismayed by some numbers,” Robinson told reporters outside the Olympic restaurant. “But we’re not looking at numbers, we’re looking at people and we’re going after votes. And we know we can still win this race.”

Experts say concern about a candidate whose views are seen as extreme can hurt enthusiasm among the party faithful.

“Trouble and dissension down ballot can have an effect on party turnout, which can influence the results at the top of the ticket,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. He said moderate North Carolina Republicans could vote for Harris and Stein “to send a message to the GOP.”

Trump endorsed Robinson before the primary, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids,” in reference to the civil rights leader, for his speaking ability. Robinson would be North Carolina’s first Black governor if elected.

Morrow, the schools superintendent candidate, attended the Jan. 6, 2021, rally in Washington before the attack on the U.S. Capitol, suggested at the time that the military could keep Trump in office and has called public schools liberal “indoctrination centers.”

Robinson has pushed back on the abortion issue and gone on offense. He has released economic and public safety platforms and is running a commercial accusing Stein of failing to address rising crime and violence. Robinson began running an ad last month in which he appears to accept the state’s current 12-week ban on most abortions enacted by the Republican-dominated General Assembly last year. The ad also revealed to a broader audience a previous disclosure about his wife’s abortion decades ago.

Robinson described to a table of restaurant patrons this past week how he supports an abortion ban after roughly six weeks of pregnancy, but that the 12-week limit won out at the legislature.

“As an elected official, I have a personal opinion, but also as an elected official, I have to go along with what’s called consensus,” Robinson told reporters afterward as he began a statewide campaign tour. Stein’s campaign alleges that Robinson would seek a total abortion ban with no exceptions if elected.

Shumaker, the Republican consultant, said polling shows Stein is performing better than Robinson among independent voters. One unaffiliated voter, Richard Morgan, 68, attended the Colfax event and votes Republican. He said he has told Robinson that he needs to sharpen his abortion commercial to highlight his support for women.

As for Robinson’s past controversial comments, Morgan said he gives Robinson “the benefit of the doubt that he’s a changed man because everybody else does for other candidates” who say things they regret later.

It may be too late to convince other independents.

Susie Hess, 64, a retired social worker who attended the Stein event, said the things she has heard that Robinson has said are “horrible.” She said she has voted for Republicans before and believes some of them hold the same values she does, but that does not seem to be the case this year.

“Because a lot of them are falling in line with Trump,” Hess said, “they’re kind of giving up on their values.”

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Associated Press polling editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and chief elections analyst Chad Day in Washington contributed to this report.

The justices agreed unanimously that counterclaims that Ace Speedway in Alamance County and its owners filed seeking financial damages can continue, agreeing with a Court of Appeals panel in 2022 and a trial judge that refused to throw them out. That lawsuit was filed weeks after a judge in 2020 helped enforce then-Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen’s order to stop the track from holding events unless they complied with Cooper’s statewide executive order that included crowd-size limits.

State lawyers representing Kody Kinsley — Cohen’s successor — argued the speedway was cited because it repeatedly and publicly violated the law, and that sovereign immunity blocks such litigation against a state official. They also said COVID-19 gathering limits were temporary and served a proper governmental purpose to protect the public during the “early and uncertain stages of an unprecedented global pandemic.”

But the Supreme Court agreed the speedway’s attorney made plausible legal claims that the state infringed on rights for people to enjoy “the fruits of their own labor” and conducted ”unlawful selective enforcement” of its order against the speedway. The substance of those claims have yet to be judged in court.

“We emphasize that these allegations remain unproven,” Associate Justice Richard Dietz wrote in the court’s opinion, but “these allegations assert colorable claims under the North Carolina Constitution for which there is no alternative remedy,” and thus litigation is allowed.

The ruling hands a legal defeat to the Democratic governor by a court composed of five registered Republicans and two Democrats. The case now returns to trial court to be heard. The state Department of Health and Human Services is reviewing the decision, a spokesperson said.

Three days after Cooper issued a May 2020 executive order placing a 25-person cap on all outdoor gatherings, Ace Speedway hosted approximately 2,550 spectators for its first race of the season.

Racetrack operator Robert Turner spoke out against the restrictions and said his racetrack would remain open for all attendees. A sign posted on site at a subsequent race that June labeled the 2,000-person gathering a “peaceful protest of injustice and inequality everywhere,” the lawsuit states.

When the short-track speedway continued to draw crowds of 1,000 or more, Cooper’s office ordered the Alamance County sheriff to intervene. After the sheriff refused, the Cooper administration declared Ace Speedway an “imminent hazard” for the spread of COVID-19 and called for its closure until the order expired. Turner alleged that Cooper treated his business differently than other outdoor venues because of his vocal opposition.

Such restrictions have long expired. State attorneys argued if counterclaims were allowed to continue, they would “hamstring the government’s ability to effectively address future public health crises and other emergencies,” Kinsley’s legal brief read.

Dietz wrote that at this stage of the case the Ace Speedway allegations must be taken as true. And if Cooper did indeed single out the business for enforcement because of Turner’s outcry, then the order would have not held a proper governmental purpose, Dietz said.

Chuck Kitchen, an attorney representing the speedway operators, praised Friday’s decision, saying the speedway was shut down for nearly an entire racing season.

Other court cases involving the governor’s powers in health emergencies are pending.

The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear a pair of cases filed by operators of standalone bars who said Cooper’s executive orders forcing them to remain shuttered for safety while restaurants that serve alcohol got to reopen violated the state constitution. Court of Appeals panels have sided with the bar and taverns. Kitchen, who is also representing plaintiffs in one of the bar cases, said the bar litigation could address more broadly whether the executive orders were unlawful even without selective enforcement allegations.

The Democratic-controlled State Board of Elections voted 3-2 along party lines to sign off on the credentials. It declared that showing the Mobile UNC One Card generated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was a way registered voters could meet the state’s relatively new photo voter ID mandate.

The voter ID law sets several categories of qualifying identifications, such as North Carolina driver’s licenses, U.S. passports and some free ID cards. The state board also accepts applications from public and private universities, local government entities and others that want their IDs to qualify. While the board has OK’d over 130 traditional student and employee IDs as qualifying for voting purposes in 2024, Tuesday’s vote marks the qualification of the first such ID posted from someone’s smartphone.

The state Republican Party later criticized the approval and suggested a possible legal challenge ahead. Minor adjustments to ballot access could affect outcomes in several anticipated close statewide races this fall in North Carolina.

State law doesn’t specifically define an “identification card.” A board attorney told board members it was her reading that there’s nothing in the law that specifically limits approval to printed cards.

UNC-Chapel Hill students and employees who use Apple phones can obtain a Mobile One Card or continue to use a physical One Card, which already had been approved as a qualifying card. One Cards can also be used to access buildings and parking and pay for food.

Board Chair Alan Hirsch, a Democrat, said trends in technology led him to approve a mobile ID, pointing out that airline passengers now show boarding passes from their smartphones.

“There’s certainly enough flexibility within the statute for us to approve a digital card as a card. I think that’s the way of the world,” Hirsch told colleagues during the online meeting. “I think everyone of a certain younger generation than we are lives by that.”

Republican members argued the language of the voter ID law requires an actual card unless or until the General Assembly changes it. Approving a mobile ID when state board officials still say showing a photo of a hard ID card from a mobile device can’t be accepted during in-person voting is “confusing and inconsistent,” GOP board member Four Eggers said.

“This is a different process we’re doing here than simply giving my friend my football tickets when I download them from the website,” Eggers said.

The law says qualifying IDs must meet several photo and security requirements to be approved by the board. State Board Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said other schools have unsuccessfully attempted to get similar mobile ID cards approved. UNC-Chapel Hill met all the standards, she said, particularly by having an expiration date on the ID credential.

In a post on X, the state Republican Party wrote the elections board “is playing more games with Election Integrity” by permitting a digital ID.

“Rest assured — we won’t stand for it,” the state GOP wrote.

The current voter ID law was initially approved in late 2018 but didn’t get carried out until the 2023 municipal elections as legal challenges continued. A trial in a federal lawsuit challenging the photo ID law was completed in May, but a judge has yet to issue a decision.

Someone who can’t show a qualifying ID casts a provisional ballot and either fills out an exception form or provides an ID before ballot counts are complete.

People casting traditional absentee ballots also are asked to put a copy of an ID into their envelope. UNC-Chapel Hill voters can now insert a photocopy of the One Card displayed on their phones after Tuesday’s approval, board spokesperson Pat Gannon said.

The board on Tuesday also formally placed Cornel West on the state’s presidential ballots after a federal judge overturned the board’s recent decision not to recognize a political group that appeared to collect enough signatures to become an official state party.

The board had voted along party lines last month not to certify the Justice for All Party of North Carolina, with some board members questioning the methods by which signatures were obtained.

But U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle wrote on Aug. 12 that the board went too far in throwing out the party petition entirely. The board unanimously agreed Tuesday to comply with Boyle’s order to declare Justice for All an official party and to accept West, a progressive activist and professor, as a ballot candidate.

Cooper and state Health and Human Services Secretary Kody Kinsley unveiled six weeks ago a proposal submitted to federal Medicaid regulators that they said could help about 2 million people in the state get rid of $4 billion in debt held by hospitals, which usually only can recoup a small portion.

“This makes sense for the hospitals, their patients and their communities,” Cooper said at a news conference in which he revealed all 99 qualifying hospitals — including the state’s largest hospital systems — have committed to the voluntary debt-elimination effort.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services signed off last month on the plan details, which build on a Medicaid reimbursement program started recently for 99 acute-care, rural or university-connected hospitals. The hospitals were asked to make their participation decisions known by late last week.

Changes that benefit consumers will begin in the coming months, including by next July 1 the elimination of medical debt going back to early 2014 for the hospitals’ patients who are Medicaid enrollees. The hospitals in time also will eliminate medical debt that is more than two years old for non-enrollees who make below certain incomes or whose debt exceeds 5% of their annual income.

“We are often confronted with messages that tackling medical debt is impossible,” said Jose Penabad, a board member with Undue Medical Debt, a national group that will work with North Carolina hospitals, but “today is a message of hope.”

The hospitals also will agree to carry out programs going forward to discourage debt. By Jan. 1, for example, hospitals will automatically enroll people in charity care programs if they already qualify for food stamps and other welfare programs. And by July they’ll have to curb debt collection practices by not telling credit reporting agencies about unpaid bills and by capping interest rates on medical debt.

The qualifying hospitals already participate in what’s called the Healthcare Access and Stabilization Program. The General Assembly approved it last year along with expanded Medicaid coverage to working adults who couldn’t otherwise qualify for conventional Medicaid. Hospitals pay assessments to draw down billions of dollars in federal money.

The HASP hospitals are now poised to receive even higher levels of reimbursement by agreeing to the medical debt initiatives. Kinsley’s department said that hospitals that otherwise would have shared funds from a pot of $3.2 billion this fiscal year now will benefit from an estimated $4 billion and a projected $6.3 billion in the next year.

Other state and local governments have tapped into federal American Rescue Plan funds to help purchase and cancel residents’ debt for pennies on the dollar

Cooper, a Democrat who leaves the job in January, acknowledged recently that hospitals had responded somewhat negatively to the medical debt effort. He said Monday he believed that hospitals were put off initially because HASP funds previously unrestricted were now going to be tied to debt-reduction incentives.

But ultimately “these hospitals looked at the bottom line, looked at the benefits to their patients and communities and decided to sign up,” he said.

The North Carolina Healthcare Association — which lobbies for nonprofit and for-profit hospitals, said Monday in a news release that it “stands ready” to help hospital implement the new debt relief initiative. “We are also committed to addressing the root causes of medical debt and will continue to work with partners to improve access to affordable, high-quality care,” the group added.

Wake County Superior Court Judge Keith Gregory rejected the preliminary injunction request by the North Carolina Democratic Party, which challenged the board’s decision last month that declared We the People an official party.

Separately late Monday, a federal judge halted the board’s rejection of official party status for another political group — Justice for All — that collected signatures to put progressive activist and professor Cornel West on the presidential ballot. U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle told the board to declare Justice for All of North Carolina an official party and to accept its candidates for the fall ballot.

The board had voted 4-1 to recognize We the People, which has been used by Kennedy’s supporters to get the environmentalist and author on the ballot in a handful of states. Kennedy otherwise promotes himself nationally as an independent. The decision came as a New York judge ruled against Kennedy ’s inclusion on the ballot there, saying he’s a California resident.

Board staff last found We The People organizers turned in enough valid signatures from registered and qualified voters to exceed the petition threshold in state law, which is currently 13,865. Petition collectors also must inform the signers of the general purpose and intent of the proposed party.

Lawyers for We the People and the state said the board granted the certification properly, in keeping with rules approved by the General Assembly.

“You simply asked this court to look at the law and you said the state board didn’t violate it,” Gregory told state attorney Terence Steed at the close of the nearly two-hour hearing. “I agree.”

The state Democratic Party filed a complaint seeking the board’s decision be reversed. It accused Kennedy’s campaign of using the We the People vehicle to evade the tougher standard that state law sets for independent candidates to get on the ballot — the collection of six times as many signatures.

Two of the board’s Democrats joined the two Republicans in giving We the People official party status on July 16. But even one of those two Democrats — Chair Alan Hirsch — said at the time the We The People effort was “a subterfuge” and suggested the matter was ripe for a legal challenge.

Ray Bennett, a lawyer representing the Democrats in the lawsuit, pointed in court to We the People petition instructions stating the party’s purpose was simply to create a new party to put Kennedy on the ballot. That’s impermissible, Bennett said, and it would otherwise prompt all independent candidates to favor the easier political party signature process.

But Steed and Oliver Hall, a lawyer representing We the People, said the certification law contains no test that the election board must use to decide whether a new party’s purpose is acceptable — rather, it simply must have one.

Hall also said removing We the People from the ballot would be an extraordinary action that violates voters’ First Amendment rights.

A state Democratic Party spokesperson didn’t respond Monday to an email seeking comment on Gregory’s decision, which the judge planned to issue in writing later and could be appealed.

The Democratic lawyers had asked that Gregory act by the end of the week. State election officials have said that’s when they needed all candidate names for fall ballot printing.

Democrats are worried Kennedy still has enough left-wing star appeal that he could peel off voters from their presidential nominee, who was expected to be President Joe Biden until he dropped his reelection bid last month. Vice President Kamala Harris has since won the nomination.

The Justice for All litigation stemmed from the board’s Democratic majority voting 3-2 to reject the group’s petition for official party status.

Board staff said it had received more than 17,000 signatures for Justice for All. But Democratic board members questioned how most of the signatures turned in were collected, including those sought by an outside organization called People Over Party. Board staff said dozens of voters whose names were on that list of signatures said they didn’t sign the petition or didn’t know what it was for. And the board said potentially fraudulent signatures were being investigated.

Boyle ruled the board went too far in throwing out the entire petition request. He said People Over Party submitted documents showing how it complied with the petition law. As for allegations of fraud, the board could have simply removed the signatures from counties where many reports originated, subtracting them from the total.

“The Board effectively disenfranchised over 17,000 North Carolina voters who signed petitions to certify JFA as a new political party on flawed, highly suspect grounds,” Boyle wrote while declaring the plaintiffs were likely to win in court on their First Amendment claims. Boyle’s ruling can also be appealed.

Kennedy’s campaign has said he is officially on the ballot in 17 states and signatures have been submitted in 23 more. The West campaign has said it has secured ballot access in 14 other states but acknowledged some certifications must still be finalized.

Cooper’s office said Monday that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services late last week approved the plan submitted by the state Department of Health and Human Services.

Cooper and health department leaders have described the plan as a first-of-its-kind proposal in the country to give hospitals a new financial carrot to cancel debt they hold on low- and middle-income patients and to help residents avoid it. The effort also received praise Monday from Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee.

Cooper’s administration has estimated the plan has the potential to help 2 million low- and middle-income people in the state get rid of $4 billion in debt. Cooper has said hospitals wouldn’t recoup most of this money anyway.

“This debt relief program is another step toward improving the health and well-being of North Carolinians while supporting financial sustainability of our hospitals,” state Health and Human Services Secretary Kody Kinsley said in a release.

The proposal, which DHHS will now work to carry out, focuses on enhanced Medicaid reimbursement payments that acute-care, rural or university-connected hospitals can receive through what’s called Healthcare Access and Stabilization Program.

The General Assembly approved this program last year along with provisions sought by Cooper for years that expanded Medicaid coverage in the state to working adults who couldn’t otherwise qualify for conventional Medicaid.

Any of the roughly 100 hospitals participating in the program are now poised to receive even higher levels of reimbursement if they voluntarily do away with patients’ medical debt going back to early 2014 on current Medicaid enrollees — and on non-enrollees who make below certain incomes or whose debt exceeds 5% of their annual income.

Going forward, the hospitals also would have to help low- and middle-income patients — for example, those in a family of four making no more than $93,600 — by providing deep discounts on medical bills. The hospitals would have to enroll people automatically in charity care programs, agree not to sell their debt to collectors or tell credit reporting agencies about unpaid bills. Interest rates on medical debt also would be capped.

When Cooper unveiled the proposal July 1, the North Carolina Healthcare Association — which lobbies for nonprofit and for-profit hospitals, said the group and its members needed more time to review the proposal and awaited the response from the federal government.

Speaking last week at a roundtable discussion in Winston-Salem about the effort, Cooper said hospitals have “reacted somewhat negatively” to the effort. But many hospitals have engaged with us and and given us advice on how to write the procedures in order to help them if they decided to adopt this,” Cooper added.

State officials have said debt relief for individuals under the program would likely occur in 2025 and 2026. Cooper’s term ends in January, so the program’s future could depend on who wins the November gubernatorial election.

Other state and local governments have tapped into federal American Rescue Plan funds to help purchase and cancel residents’ debt for pennies on the dollar.

The vice president’s news release supporting North Carolina’s effort didn’t specifically mention Cooper, who is considered a potential running mate for Harris this fall. Harris highlighted efforts with President Joe Biden to forgive over $650 million in medical debt and to eliminate even more.

“Last month, I issued a call to states, cities, and hospitals across our nation to join us in forgiving medical debt,” she said. “I applaud North Carolina for setting an example that other states can follow.”

The state Department of Health and Human Services revealed a larger amount in a Friday letter to Yolanda Hill following a compliance review of Balanced Nutrition Inc., for which Hill is listed as owner and chief financial officer. Robinson, who is also the Republican nominee for governor this fall, worked in the nonprofit years ago before running for elected office, according to his memoir.

Hill previously announced she was shutting down the nonprofit’s enterprise and withdrawing from the Child and Adult Care Food Program on April 30. But state officials had already announced in March that the fiscal year’s review of Balanced Nutrition would begin April 15.

The review’s findings, released Wednesday, cited new and repeat problems, including lax paperwork and the failure to file valid claims on behalf of child care operators or to report expenses accurately. The program told Hill and other leaders to soon take corrective action on the “serious deficiencies” or regulators would propose they be disqualified from future program participation.

The state health department said on Thursday that the Greensboro nonprofit also owed the state $24,400 in unverified expenses reimbursed to several child care providers or homes examined by regulators in the review.

But Friday’s letter counted another $107,719 in ineligible claims or expenses that the state said was generated while Balanced Nutrition performed administrative and operating activities as a program sponsor during the first three months of the year. Forms signed by regulators attributed over $80,000 of these disallowed costs to “administrative labor” or “operating labor.” The records don’t provide details about the labor costs.

This week’s compliance review did say that Balanced Nutrition should have disclosed and received approval from the program that Hill’s daughter was working for the nonprofit.

The owed amounts and proposed program disqualification can be appealed. A lawyer representing Balanced Nutrition and Hill did not immediately respond to an email Friday seeking comment.

The lawyer, Tyler Brooks, has previously questioned the review’s timing, alleging Balanced Nutrition was being targeted because Hill is Robinson’s wife and that “political bias” tainted the compliance review process. Program leaders, meanwhile, have described in written correspondence difficulties in obtaining documents and meeting with Balanced Nutrition leaders.

The health department is run by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration. He was term-limited from seeking reelection. Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein is running against Robinson for governor.

Balanced Nutrition helped child care centers and homes qualify to participate in the free- and reduced-meal program, filed claims for centers to get reimbursed for meals for enrollees and ensured the centers remained in compliance with program requirements. The nonprofit received a portion of a center’s reimbursement for its services.

Balanced Nutrition, funded by taxpayers, has collected roughly $7 million in government funding since 2017, while paying out at least $830,000 in salaries to Hill, Robinson and other members of their family, tax filings and state documents show.

Robinson described in his memoir how the operation brought fiscal stability to his family, giving him the ability to quit a furniture manufacturing job in 2018 and begin a career in politics.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s election board voted Tuesday to certify a political party that wants to put Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the state’s presidential ballot this fall. The panel rejected a similar petition effort by a group backing Cornel West, citing questions about how signatures were collected.

After weeks of reviewing the signature drives, the board voted 4-1 to recognize the We The People party that supporters of Kennedy, an author and environmental lawyer, are using as a vehicle for him to run in a handful of states. The election board decision means the party can place Kennedy on statewide ballots.

But the board’s Democratic majority voted 3-2 along party lines to block the Justice for All Party of North Carolina from ballots. That group supports West, a professor and progressive activist.

Board staff said We The People and Justice for All each collected enough valid signatures from registered and qualified voters. The 13,865 required are a small fraction of those needed to run as an independent candidate in North Carolina, which Kennedy initially attempted.

Board Chair Alan Hirsch, a Democrat, said that while he believed thousands of signatures turned in by Justice for All were credible, he had serious misgivings about the purpose of signature collectors unrelated to the group that also turned in petitions.

In a video presented to the board, a pro-Donald Trump activist collected signatures for West outside a Trump rally in North Carolina and said getting West on the ballot would take votes away from presumptive Democratic nominee and President Joe Biden.

Separately, Hirsch pointed to the group People Over Party collecting signatures to support West’s candidacy. He said its attorney refused to provide information sought in a board subpoena. A People Over Party lawyer called the subpoena requests overly broad and subject to attorney-client privilege.

“I have no confidence that this was done legitimately,” Hirsch said of the petition drive.

Board staff also said that of nearly 50 people contacted at random from the Justice For All petition list, many said they didn’t sign the petition or didn’t know what it was for.

The election board’s two Republican members said both groups should have been recognized as official parties.

“Justice for All has submitted well over the number of petitions required. And if we don’t approve them as a new party in the state of North Carolina based on talking to 49 people, I think that would be injustice for all,” GOP member Kevin Lewis said.

Republicans and their allies have said the board’s Democratic majority was trying to deny ballot access to candidates who would take away votes from Biden in the battleground state won by Trump in 2016 and 2020.

Justice for All Party of North Carolina Chair Italo Medelius said he expected the party would soon ask a federal judge to order its candidates be placed on the ballot. The Kennedy campaign didn’t immediately respond to an email Tuesday seeking comment on We The People’s recognition.

Not including North Carolina, Kennedy’s campaign has said he is officially on the ballot in nine states and that signatures have been submitted in 14 more. The West campaign said it has secured ballot access in 10 other states, but acknowledged some certifications must still be finalized.

In some states, the drives to get West and Kennedy on ballot have been backed by secretive groups and Republican donors.

The Constitution Party of North Carolina will join several other parties already officially recognized by the state. Board staff determined the party collected enough valid signatures from registered and qualified voters to exceed a threshold set in state law. The Constitution Party had been an official party in 2020, but it failed to perform well enough in that election to remain one.

Two weeks ago, the State Board of Elections voted 3-2 against a motion giving the Constitution Party formal recognition, citing concern about the mailing address for the group’s chairman on signature collection documents. The board’s Democratic majority made up the prevailing side. But board Chair Alan Hirsch said before Tuesday’s 5-0 vote that the issue was very technical in nature. “I am of the view that on reflection that we shouldn’t stand in the way for any potential technical errors,” Hirsch said.

The Democratic majority last month also declined to approve official recognition of the We The People party and Justice for All Party of North Carolina, although board officials confirmed that both petition efforts had turned in more valid signatures than the 13,865 required. That threshold is much larger than what Kennedy, an author and environmental lawyer, and West, a professor and progressive activist, would have needed if they sought to run statewide as independent candidates.

The board’s Democrats said they wanted more information about what petition gatherers for the We The People, backing Kennedy, and Justice for All, aligned with West, told voters about the nascent parties. State law requires that they must communicate the “purpose and intent” of the new parties to petition signers. They also wanted board staff to attempt to contact signers who later filled out affidavits asking that their names be removed.

Hirsch, a Democrat, said Tuesday more time was needed for staff to take in more details. Responses to several subpoenas issued by the board had not been returned by Tuesday’s meeting, board attorney Paul Cox said.

Hirsch offered no date for the next meeting but said that “we will do that promptly in plenty of time to get these folks on the ballot, should they be approved as parties.”

North Carolina political parties have until mid-August to submit their presidential ticket candidate names to the board in time for ballots to be prepared. The national Constitution Party this year nominated anti-abortion activist Randall Terry as its presidential candidate.

Adding presidential candidates raises the stakes about who will win North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes. Republican Donald Trump won the state in both 2016 and in 2020, but his margin over Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 was less than 1.4 percentage points.

Republican board members expressed frustration Tuesday with another delay, saying the board should stop second-guessing voters who signed the petitions and what signature collectors expressed about their party’s purpose and give official recognition. The state Democratic Party and Clear Choice Action, a group affiliated with a super PAC aligned with Biden’s allies, wrote the board last month asking that the petitions be rejected.

“I’m just completely at a loss of what’s going on here,” GOP board member Kevin Lewis told Hirsch, adding that the deferrals are “bringing a lot of bad publicity on the board. Your motives are starting to be questioned.”

Hirsch declined to respond directly to Lewis’ allegations of partisanship. He said later: “We’re gonna take the evidence where it leads us.”

Republican politicians, including Trump’s campaign, have also blasted the board’s delay as politically motivated. “Democratic partisans on the State Board of Elections have ignored clear state law and refused to certify third parties that pose a threat to Joe Biden in November,” state House Speaker Tim Moore said after Tuesday’s meeting.

Not including North Carolina, Kennedy’s campaign has said he is officially on the ballot in 10 states and has submitted signatures in 11 more states. The West campaign said it has secured ballot access in eight states, but acknowledged some certifications must still be finalized.